


you see your kiss is like a lost ghost only I would know

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Fluff and Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 12:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18314879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: There are lots of different ways to say I love you. Four times Eliot and Quentin say I love you, and then one time they actually say it.





	you see your kiss is like a lost ghost only I would know

"We return to each other in waves.  This is how water loves".

\- Nayyirah Waheed.

 

1.

Getting Eliot back from the clutches of The Monster turns out to be much easier than going up against the Library.

“It's just- so much red tape,” Penny had groaned early on after coming back from a talk with his timeline 40 counterpart, “Red tape and fucking pantsuits.”

“And fascism,” Josh had said, “Or is it totalitarianism?”

“Fucked if I know,” Margo replied and sculled the wine she was drinking.

They all move into Kady’s apartment, spelling up some extra rooms and bathrooms, as well as a tunnel under the building so their comings and goings are shielded. It’s a little weird with them all living in each other’s pockets, but the apartment is the only place shielded enough to keep the Librarians off their backs.

Julia secretly likes it. She thinks this is what it would have been like if she was admitted to Brakebills with Quentin.

Though she would prefer it if Margo and Josh stopped having sex on the living room couch. But from the messenger bunnies that Fen sends them, they aren’t much better in Fillory.

Even Alice is bearable to live with, not that she has actually decided to try and bond with someone who isn’t Quentin. Now if they could just get her to loosen up and stop sneering at things she thinks are beneath her the others would come around to her as well.

Today they are having a group a study session. They recently raided a library that Irene McAllister was controlling, a real library not the kind The Library has any control over. They figured since she was working with them, she would probably have some leverage stored somewhere in case the relationship soured. But so far-

“Fuck,” Kady groans and throws the grimoire down onto the coffee table, “I need a beer.”

“I second that,” Julia agrees setting down her own book, “So far I haven’t found anything that would help up either infiltrate the Library-”

“And negate their home field advantage,” Alice reminds her.

“-or that tells us how to break their hold on magic.”

Kady comes back and hands her a beer, flicking the top off for her.

“Um, is there anything in the Library in Fillory that could help?” Quentin asks from where is sitting beside the coffee table at Julia’s feet, a position that had made Penny 23 jealous for a good hour.

“Fucked if I know,” Margo sighs from where her head is pillowed in Josh’s lap

“Fen has been helping me look but they are in so many obscure languages, she has all the translators in the fucking kingdom working on the most promising looking ones now,” Josh continues for her, and then hands her a brownie, which is supposedly just a straight brownie but … its _Josh_.

“And they’re all Racoons so it's going to take a while,” Margo takes a bite of the brownie and her eyes go wide, “What is this?”

“Lemon butter,” Josh’s face stretches into an excited smile, “With dark chocolate and Himalayan salt.”

“Its good shit.”

Margo holds the brownie out to Eliot, whose lap is being used as her leg rest. He takes a bite and his eyes go wide.

“Wow. Good job, Josh.”

Josh ducks his head, practically vibrating from the praise.

Knowing that brownies are safe Kady gets one herself and passes the plate around the group.

“What about Brakebills?” Penny 23 asks.

“Already raided it,” Kady shakes her head, “I got a couple of leads from one, but I haven’t been able to track down the other volumes on the black market.”

“And I supposed Dean Fogg has been his usual charming self,” Eliot sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “What about that hedge-witch woman, Marissa.”

“Marina,” Julia correct him, “And we haven’t been able to find her. We think the Library drove her underground.”

Eliot sighs again and squeezes his eyes shut.

“You need your glasses.”

Julia, and everyone else in the circle looks at Quentin. He hadn’t looked up from the book he was readying to say that.

“No, I don’t”

Julia looks between the two men. She didn’t know that Eliot even had glasses, and from the interested looks on everyone but Margo’s faces, neither did anyone else.

“You’ll get a headache,” Quentin continues.

Eliot opens his eyes to glare at Quentin.

“ _No_ , I won’t.”

Quentin raises his head from his book and levels Eliot with a look. There is a silent standoff and then Eliot huffs.

“Fine.”

He stands up, displacing Margo’s legs, and strides out of the room.

“…What the fuck was that?” Kady asks.

Quentin rolls his eyes.

“He thinks they make him look old.”

Eliot comes back into the room wearing a pair of clear framed glasses. He sits back down, pulling Margo’s legs and his book back onto his lap, and says nothing to anyone.

Quentin hides his smirk in his book.

Julia shares a look with the others, but they all shrug. Then she looks at Quentin.

Sometime during the key quest, after they retrieved the time key, Quentin changed. Something about him became more settled. Like he’d aged beyond his years. Julia hasn’t been able to find out what happened, but she knows it has something to do with Eliot.

Quentin meets her eyes and for a moment she thinks she sees an old, white-haired man sitting there in his place. She blinks and he is her Q again.

But then Alice sits up suddenly with a shouted, “Got something!” and she puts her concerns aside for the moment.

 

2.

After that, the group keeps an eye on the two men. Not because they are suspicious, just nosy by nature.

“I think they’re probably just fucking,” Josh shrugs as he folds the raspberries into his latest pie, “Which, you know, good for them.”

“I don’t think so,” Julia hums, “Q seems too …”

“Uptight?” Kady guesses.

“Fucking repressed,” Penny laughs and then cows when Julia sends him a look.

“…Stressed, for that to be the answer.”

Margo flicks out her nails admiring the colour she is painting them.

“Eliot’s not getting any either. He’d tell me if he was.”

“What do you have staff meetings about your sex lives?”

When Margo doesn’t answer Josh turns around to look at her.

“You don’t do you?”

She just grins.

 

Not long after that, they find out Irene McAllister is hosting a gala for all the Black Card holders in the city. It will be fancy, and crowded, and gives them an opportunity to sneak into the McAllister library.

Kady and Margo manage to magic them up some gowns and tuxedos, the girls all opting for black and dark coloured dresses, seeing as they are relying on their perception filter spells to keep them safe. They don’t want to draw too much attention less it buckles under the pressure.

Margo stands in front of Alice now, looking at her in a way that makes her wanna crawl away and hide. Alice doesn’t want to admit it, but it's easy to see why she is High King if she can naturally just make people feel like that.

“Will you Niffin out on me if I fix your boobs?”

“No,” Alice insists, “…what’s wrong with them?”

“If these sleazy rich fucks are looking at your boobs they won’t even notice they can’t focus on your face,” Margo “They need to be up high and proud if we want this to work.”

Alice frowns and adjusts herself. Margo smiles.

“There are the girls I know,” she pats Alice’s arm, “Just let them do the talking and you won’t even need to pretend you have a personality.”

Alice’s frown deepens.

“That was a joke,” Margo sighs.

“Oh. Sorry I missed it.”

Alice really is grateful that Margo has forgiven her enough to try and be her friend again. She hates herself some nights for thinking her attempts at friendship when they first met were cruel tricks. Another thing to feel guilty about.

Margo rolls her eyes and they stand at the bottom of the stairs waiting for Eliot. The rest of them are already dressed and waiting. Julia and Kady look nice in their gowns, Alice thinks. She wonders if she should tell them or if they would take the compliments in the wrong way.

Quentin looks handsome in his suit, more handsome than Penny and Josh in her opinion. But she _will_ keep that to herself.

“Come on, man!” Kady yells up the stairs, “They won't even be able to see you! Hurry up!”

Julia links her arm through Penny’s and then Kady’s, ready for them to travel to the gala. Margo slips her arm through Kady’s and then holds her hand out to Alice. After a moment to translate the gesture Alice takes it. She still isn’t used to being touched in a friendly way. But this feels nice.

There is a thunking sound from up the stairs and then Eliot appears.

Josh wolf whistles.

“El,” Margo chastises, though she is grinning, “They won’t be able to see you.”

“Still,” Eliot shrugs with fake nonchalance, “It’s a point of pride to look as fuckable as I possibly can every time I leave the house.”

He does look handsome, Alice thinks. He is mostly wearing a standard tuxedo but had paired it with an embroidered midnight blue waistcoat and open collar black shirt. Around his neck is a silk scarf that swishes around his airily, and he has done his hair in that way that reminds Alice of those princes in cartoons. Her parents never let her watch those movies.

Eliot comes to a halt in front of Quentin. He looks him up and down and sighs.

“What?” Q asks.

“Handsome,” Eliot says, “But just a little-”

He reaches out and combs Quentin’s hair back from his face.

“El-”

As they watch Eliot straightens Quentin’s suit jacket, and then steps up close to him to straighten his bowtie. It's an intimate gesture. And it makes something rise in Alice’s chest.

Jealousy, she thinks. Envy.

 _You could have had that_ , the poisonous part of her brain whispers,  _if you didn’t fuck it up. If you didn’t push him away. You could still-_

She shakes her head to make the voice stop and Margo tuts, smoothing her hair back into place.

“Are you done?” Quentin asks, smiling.

“Hmmm,” Eliot gives him one more once over and steps back, “You’ll do.”

Then they join hands with Kady and Alice, and Penny travels them off to their mission.

 

3.

What they find in Irene McAllister’s library is a vault full of vials of blood. Some of them are from the Librarians. Some more are from Professors at Brakebills. And more than a few of them are from Hedge-witches.

They don’t have the time to grab all the vials, so they just take the ones for the head librarians. And the ones that have their names on them.

But then they have no idea what to do with them.

Quentin takes all the books dealing with Blood Magic out of the Brakebills library and spreads them out on the kitchen counter, where he stays reading them for days.

And it makes him catch a cold.

Julia tries and fails to coax him away from the books, to get some rest so he gets better, but he refuses. He even draws an anti-traveler Sigel onto his stool so that Penny can’t force him to go to bed. Alice seems like she on the verge of drugging him, but Julia insists that wouldn’t help the tenuous friendship she has with the group.

Josh helps in his own way. He bakes a shit tone of muffins. Julia takes the bulk of them to food banks and old folks homes, and the apartment is still lousy with them.

“It's ridiculous,” Kady says as they sit in the living room, not so discreetly watching Quentin shiver over an ancient Greek scroll, “He’s going to hurt himself.”

The others hum but have nothing to offer and she sighs.

She didn’t like Quentin when they first met. He seemed like a nerd who was more trouble than he was worth. And she was right about that.

But somewhere between quests to Fillory, getting trapped in demon pocket worlds, and trying to save magic, she had started to like the little nerd. Not that she would ever tell him that too his face.

But that, unfortunately, meant that she couldn’t sit idly by and watch him kill himself over this.

So, she sends a messenger bunny to Eliot. He and Margo had gone back to Fillory for a while, intent to help Fen negotiate a new political alliance with the talking animals … a sentence Kady never thought she would ever think was normal. This is her life now.

In the meantime Kady does the only thing she can. She makes Quentin oatmeal that he doesn’t eat, and she helps him look for answers in the books.

Three days after she sent the bunny the linen cupboard opens and Eliot steps through.

“Woah!” Penny jumps up from the couch, startled, “How long has there been a portal to Fillory in there?”

“It's just a one-time thing,” Eliot tells him, waggling his fingers in a wave to them all. Then he walks up to Kady.

“How is he?”

“More snot than man,” she rolls her eyes, “He has a high temperature and he keeps drifting off to sleep sitting up.”

“He isn’t helping anyone like this,” Alice insists, twitching the way she does when she feels helpless.

“Yes, thank you,” Eliot nods to her and then looks back at Kady, “You have a kettle here right?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” Eliot shrugs off his Fillorian suit coat and neckerchief, throwing them onto the back of the couch, “I’ll take it from here, little ones. He always gets like this when he’s sick, the stubborn fool.”

Kady frowns. She’s never seen Quentin sick before.

“Did Quentin get sick at Brakebills?” Julia asks.

“No,” Alice answers, frowning.

“Am I the only one who thinks this is getting weird?” Penny asks.

Eliot walks into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves as he goes. He drops a kiss onto Q’s hair, with his usual brand of casual intimacy, and says hello to Josh.

As they watch he boils the kettle, then pulls a tea bag out of his pocket and puts it in a mug with some boiled water. A sweet yet spicy smell fills the kitchen.

“Here you go,” Eliot says softly, brushing Quentin’s hair back as he puts the mug in front of him, “Drink up.”

“I don’t need-” Quentin’s protest dissolves into a coughing fit. Eliot rubs his back through it.

“Come on,” Eliot blows on the mug and holds it up to his mouth, “It’ll make you feel all better.”

Quentin sighs. And then he takes a sip of the tea. Then another, then he takes the cup from Eliot and drinks the whole thing down.

Then he slumps against Eliot’s chest, snoring.

“Holy shit,” Josh laughs, “What was that stuff, and can I have some?”

“Did you roofie him?” Kady asks as she and Penny get up to help carry Quentin over to one of the sofas.

“It’s a Fillorian remedy. It instantly clears congestion and gets rid of migraines,” Eliot says softly as he covers Quentin with a blanket, “It will keep the cold at bay for a few hours, long enough to let him sleep.”

“That would be so useful,” Josh hums, “Maybe it could be modified into a handover cure.”

“How do you know about it?” Alice asks impatiently, “And, you said he always gets like this, but I’ve never seen him-”

Eliot shushes her.

“It's not Ambien,” he hisses, “ _Shush_!”

“But-”

“Okay,” Kady insists, “Everyone out. If you wanna help, hit the books. Otherwise, fuck off.”

Alice looks affronted, but she leaves. Julia gives her a knowing and grateful look and leaves with Penny 23 hot on her heels. Kady turns back to Eliot.

“Are you going to stay.”

He nods.

“Thank you,” he says softly, “For sending for me.”

Kady presses her tongue into her cheek so she doesn’t smile.

“Yeah, well. He’s happier with you around anyway.”

Kady goes back to studying the books, and Eliot sits with Quentin for ten hours. He never once let’s go of his hand.

 

4.

They eventually realize that they can use the vials of blood to sneak into the Library, using them to make virtually impenetrable veils.

They come up with a plan; travel inside the library, use the disguises to find the valve that controls the flow of magic and destroy it. It's simple. Probably too simple, but they have a man on the inside that is doing his part.

Penny 40 is down in the underworld discreetly working to make sure they have a clear path to the valve and finding them a spell that will work to blow things up. Hopefully, they will come out of this with wildly unrestrained magic, and his contract in their possession.

It takes hours nonstop to make the potions for the veils, working around the clock for three days. Josh stays out of the casting and instead supports them by baking them brownies and pies and- basically anything that can give them a sugar high, so they can stay awake.

At one-point, Margo slumps against his chest with a groan and a cookie in her hand.

“This is so good,” she says with a pout, “If I wasn’t so goddam tired, I’d give you a thank you blowjob.”

“Urgh,” Penny grimaces across the kitchen counter, “Gross.”

“Complainers don’t get cookies.”

“Um … sorry?”

“Good enough.”

Josh hands him the basket and he takes three, shoving two in his mouth at once.

“Okay. I understand now.”

“We can all give Josh blowjobs after we finish the spell,” Julia says swapping out with Kady for the casting.

“What, really?”

Julia raises an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, ha. Gotcha.”

Margo sits up.

“We’ll be needing Quentin next,” she says, “Be a dear and fetch him for me?”

She kisses him on the jaw. That and the way she said dear has his feet moving before he even realizes, he’s going to do what she asks. She is so good.

He rounds the corner into the living room, idly daydreaming about that blowjob he can’t have right now.

“Alright, guys you’re up and I’ve just made a batch of brownies so-”

Josh freezes.

“Psst! Guys, come quick.”

Julia and Margo rush in behind him and freeze mid-step just like him.

“Oh,” Julia breathes as a smile spreads across her face.

Quentin and Eliot had come out of the rotation a couple of hours ago, and it seems they had slumped onto the sofa where they had promptly fallen asleep. Sitting up. Or well, holding each other up may be a better way of putting it.

Quentin is tucked up under Eliot’s arm with his head pillowed on his chest and his arms wrapped around his middle. Eliot is similarly entwined with Quentin, his face pressed into the smaller man’s hair.

They look peaceful. More peaceful than Josh has ever seen them before.

The hopeless romantic in him warms at the sight. Though, he doesn’t know if they are together. Emotionally, they are definitely together. But otherwise, Josh is pretty sure they are still pretending they are just friends.

He wonders if he can start a betting pool on when they will cave and admit that they are ass-over-tits for each other.

“Should I, ah- wake them up?”

Margo shakes her head. Her eyes look wet. Not that Josh notices, no sir. He wouldn’t notice anything about her that she doesn’t want him to.

“I can go again,” she says softly, “Let them sleep a while longer.”

Julia nods.

“Yeah. Let’s give them this.”

They go back into the kitchen and Josh stays behind for a moment. He has a bad feeling about their plan to free magic. Just like he had a bad feeling before they went to Castle Blackspire.

He hopes this time that they all come out of it with their memories. That they all come out of it whole.

Before he goes back to the kitchen, he summons a pillow and slips it under Eliot’s back. Loves deserves to be comfortable, in his opinion.    

 

+1

Quentin is getting pissed off.

“You can’t seriously be considering this,” Eliot scoffs.

“I am, because it is the plan.”

“Its suicide!” Eliot snaps, all his cool leaving him in an instant.

“El-” Julia starts from where she and the others are sitting on the sofas while he and Eliot face off.

But he doesn’t listen.

“How can you think that breaking into the Poison Room could possibly be a good idea!” his voice raises on volume with every word.

“Because,” Quentin snaps back, “I have a spell that will protect me from the poison, and the book we need as leverage, the leverage that will keep us from being hunted down and slaughtered by the McAllisters and the Library is in there.”

“You have no idea that spell will work!”

“We have to try!”

“No,” Eliot steps forward, giving him a hard look, “We don’t. We can find another way-”

“We are out of time El. Dean Fogg and Marina have both told us that the Libraries are this close to discovering where we are hiding. We have to do this now.”

Eliot laughs a humourless laugh and shakes his head.

“This is just like Castle Blackspire all over again,” he scoffs, “Are you that desperate to die, Quentin, huh?”

“Oh no,” Josh whimpers, “Not good.”

Margo slaps his shoulder.

“I’m not going to die!” he yells back, getting extremely frustrated at Eliot’s pigheadedness. “This is going to work.”

“No, it won’t. And what are we going to do when you die in there?”

“It’s my choice!” Quentin steps away from Eliot, turning his back to him in an attempt to calm down, “Why are you being such a hypocrite about his?”

“What?” Eliot says in a dangerous tone and Quentin whirls around to face him.

“A hypocrite!” he snaps, “Its perfectly fine for you to jump in front of lethal spells, to stay behind in Fillory, to _sacrifice your fucking life_ against the Monster, but the _second_ I risk my own life its stupid and irrational. Explain that to me!”

Eliot huffs angrily.

“It just is.”

“Why? Tell me why the fuck it is?”

“ _Because I’m in love with you, you fucking asshole!_ ”

Quentin feels his whole life hangs suspended in those words. And he’s pretty sure he hears everyone sitting on the couches gasp.

As soon as the words leave his mouth Eliot he slaps a hand over it. He obviously hadn’t meant to say that.

“R-really?” Quentin asks in a soft voice.

Eliot drops his hand and sighs.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “I’ve, uh, sort of been in love with you for years.”

“Me?”

Eliot laughs, soft and weak.

“Yes you, you idiot,” he scrubs a hand down his face.

Silence fills the apartment and-

And since Quentin got him back from The Monster, he has been struggling with his feeling for Eliot thinking that they weren’t wanted and now to hear that-

"I love you, too."

He strides across to him and pulls him down into a searing kiss.

It’s too hard, their noses bump painfully. But its also perfect, perfect because Eliot is kissing him back, and he loves him, _loves him_.

And then they almost immediately startle apart when Kady yells;

“ _Yes_! Pay up, _bitches_!

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on a roll! im coping for not being able to see 4x10 until Wednesday urgh.
> 
> im valaswife on tumblr if you wanna follow me!


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